Supercharger ICE'd by NuSTAR Energy truck and trailer

Nearly two weeks ago I started a journey north out of Austin, naturally using Superchargers along my route. My second stop was the Supercharger in Ardmore, Oklahoma. Imagine my surprise when I pulled into the parking lot only to see a Ford F-350 truck pulling a large trailer blocking all but one of the Supercharger stalls. This particular Supercharger is in the large lot of a local restaurant and it was 1pm, so the lot was pretty busy. However, obviously the Supercharger stalls were not in use or blocked by other cars when he arrived, so he just pulled his truck and trailer right in front of them. To make matters worse, the truck is owned by NuSTAR Energy LP based out of Sunray, Texas.

According to Wikipedia, "NuStar Energy L.P. is one of the largest independent liquids terminal and pipeline operators in the nation. NuStar currently has 8,708 miles of pipeline and 81 terminal and storage facilities that store and distribute crude oil, refined products and specialty liquids".

I had a bit of charging to do, so I was there for over a half hour. The driver of the truck did eventually come out of the restaurant, and he took a wide berth toward the truck to get a good look at my car sitting there (with me in it). I didn't confront him, and he quickly drove away. Not five minutes after he showed up, two more Teslas arrived (including a couple I had previously met in Austin). They would have been pretty upset had they shown up earlier.

On my return trip, I arrived at this Supercharger later in the afternoon (around 3pm I believe) and the lot was completely deserted.

It was the smartest thing they could do. I was going to retweet this and get a bunch of others to do so until I realized they'd addressed this. By doing so and quickly, they avoided any chance of the post going viral.

I kinda doubt any ICEing photo could go viral because a) almost nobody knows what Superchargers are or what ICEing means, and b) nobody cares but Tesla fans. The only way it'd go viral is if non-Tesla folks viewed this as a Tesla owner "first world problem" and made fun of the fact that some rich people's electric cars got blocked. Oh, I can't wait until Model 3 is out...

There will come a time when a truck like that is blocking the entire supercharger row and there will be a line of pissed off Model S owners or multiple tow trucks moving Model S's out. The right picture telling the right story can still go viral even if it isn't a mainstream issue yet.

I never thought about it, but posting inappropriate behavior on places like Twitter where the world can see is a throwback to the old public shaming methods. Instead of scarlet letters or pillories we now have Twitter!